i wikied kun,and found out when to use the honorifics and was thinking if i go to japan should i use sama just to keep from offending any one.also wiki said that non-Japanese people my have the honorific dropped in japan, truth or not.

I don't think many Japanese people are going to drop the honorific from a foreigner's name. Even when speaking in English, it's not rare for them to continue using the honorific. I always feel kind of weird when they use both the Japanese honorific and English titles since I tend to think they're basically the same thing.
Mr. Conner-san

I pretty much always got a -san, but I worked in a rather professional place, and as a newspaper editor people tended to behave a bit more respectfully to me officially. Off the clock, I still got the san but it was usually attached to "okyaku-" and so on.

My father recently worked with some Japanese scientists, who emailed him in English but still put -san after their names. He thought it was quite funny, since there was around 20 of them... He also asked me if he should respond to them with -san after their names.

Tspoonami wrote:My father recently worked with some Japanese scientists, who emailed him in English but still put -san after their names. He thought it was quite funny, since there was around 20 of them... He also asked me if he should respond to them with -san after their names.

I've always seen 様 sama in letters, but they were older generations of relatives I have not met, and letters from other's, like a city office also used sama.

If it's confusing, I've heard it's okay to address them the same way they address you, but I'm not sure about that? It might depend on how much you know the person or if they are your superiors. If you know them or it's a social group, such as this site, then I'm sure it's appropriate to use san.

I think that dropping any of them would be rude.

Last edited by oKawa on Sat 12.08.2007 1:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

I think the droping of the honorific
in foriegn names (especially western names)
can be seen as trying to make the person more
comfortable with the languge, like how a hand
shake is more common then a bow to a foreigner.
And personally with my limited knowledge of Japanese
I won't drop "san" for anyone, lest I'm speaking in English.